Adobe Lightroom 2

DarthBalls · Adobe Lightroom 2

I was finding my current Sony software and PS Elements 6 combination a bit time consuming and wanted to get a more efficient set up for the weddings I'm starting to get (not many just 4 this year) asked to do.

I tried the free 1 month down load of LR2 and got a quick tutorial from a mate I met at my photography nightclasses who is an Lightroom evangelist! I got the CD for £208 from Calumet last Thursday and started reviewing and processing 185 shots from a wedding shoot on Saturday. Once you know what you are doing LR2 is so fast.

You can make pretty much all the adjustments (levels, curves, white balance, exposure, cropping, resizing, etc) needed for shots quickly and copy and paste the settings straight into others from the same batch. LR2 synchs with Photoshop or Elements (I have Elements 6) so you can then open images up to do any cloning, layers etc if needed. I haven't used any of the other options like the adjustment brush that lets you brush on exposure compensation to areas of an image, the graduated filter function, and a whole load of other stuff.

woof woof

That sounds really good but I think that you're on a different level to me.

Mostly I just can't be arsed with photography software and post processing. I just have a look in RSE (Raw Shooter Essentials,) do minimal processing and then export to JPEG for minimal fiddling in CS2. To me heavy processing would be anything over a minute or two. I never do a batch process though, to me each photo is individual and so gets individual processing.

If I ever get a new camera I'll be gutted if I can't use RSE but I hold out some hope that a conversion from RAW to a standard digital negative will enable me to keep using it.

DarthBalls

woof woof

Thanks for that.

I've heard about Adobe DNG on the photography forum but I've never tried it. I might give it a go and see if it'll handle my LX2 RAW files. You get Silkypics (or something...) with the LX2 and it's incomprehensible rubbish so I use Rawtherapee or CS2 but I'm not a great fan of either for RAW.

The latest Canon stuff is supposed to be good but you only get it when you buy a camera.

DarthBalls

One of my mates converts everything to DNG - mind you I'm not really sure why!

Picasa seems to work with a lot of RAW formats too - I've used it with my A100 and A700.

woof woof

I think that the advantage of DNG is that it's a standard whereas the different manufacturers RAW formats are not. Therefore, if you come back to a Canon RAW (for example) in 10 years time you may no longer have the software to open it whereas a DNG will be able to be opened by more packages.

woof woof

I downloaded the DNG converter and converted RAW files from both my Panasonic LX2 and Canon 20D.

Unfortunately RSE wont open DNG files but CS2 had no problem. Strangely, some RAW files were the same size after conversion and some were smaller, which is slightly worrying.

I found it annoying that you can't (well, I couldn't see any way of) convert(ing) individual files, only specific folders.

DarthBalls

I've set up Lightroom to convert my files to DNG as that are imported.

I've now got 2 books on LR2 - a 'For Dummies' for the basics and another for more in depth stuff. It's proving to be a great program.

Boxer6

"him"

I have always written "program", and "programmer" on my CV's?

"Programme" is as in TV show isn't it?

DaveGibson

DarthBalls